In early October, The New York Public Library will unveil a new book delivery system that features 24 cars, running on 950-feet of vertical and horizontal track, moving millions of books through 11 different levels of the library, at a rate of 75 feet per minute. This new $2.

A museum which contains only works of art that nobody can find sounds like something Jorge Luis Borges would’ve dreamed up, but it has twice become a reality in the 21st century — or twice become a virtual reality, anyway. “The Concert by Johannes Vermeer. Poppy Flowers by Vincent van Gogh.

Image by Erinc Salor and The Necessary Evil, via Wikimedia Commons
Heads up: In the latest episode of the WTF podcast, filmmaker Werner Herzog pays a visit to Marc Maron’s garage in Los Angeles, and they get into a wide-ranging conversation, talking about Herzog’s upbringing in war-torn Germany, his upcoming film projects and a good deal more

This past spring the streets of Seoul, where I live, felt more like a sci-fi movie than usual. Large overhead video screens kept the population posted on the progress of a series of Go matches between 18-time world champion Lee Sedol and AlphaGo, a piece of artificial intelligence developed by Google DeepMind.

It’s always demoralizing when a favorite song—Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” or the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” come to mind—is co-opted to sell soda or Caribbean cruises.
Poetry, however? I’m not ungrateful to have some smuggled into my day by a commercial carrier whose agenda is somehow less suspect.

Third Man Records, the record label created by The White Stripes’ Jack White, announced Saturday that they’ve made history by launching a “space-proof” turntable into space (near space, to be precise), using a high-altitude balloon to reach a peak altitude of 94,413 feet.

If you have any entrepreneurial aspirations, you’ve likely heard of Y Combinator (YC), an accelerator based in Silicon Valley that’s been called “the world’s most powerful start-up incubator” (Fast Company) or “a spawning ground for emerging tech giants” (Fortune).

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About Us

Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best educational media. He finds the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & movies you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.